G3: Reasonably early impressions

October 21st, 2006, 12:48

First off, thanks to everybody on this forum for help with the tweaks. I eventually got G3 running very smoothly and looking rather good; it runs better than the O game actually… other than the intermittent freezing, which is still an occasional problem.

And I'm enjoying the hell out of it. It's pulled me in more than just about any game in the recent few years.

Now, it's pretty glaringly obvious that this fruit was a bit raw off the tree. It would badly have needed another month or two of balancing and just plain ol' bugfixing. I really, really hope they fix a couple of the imbalances even at the cost of losing savegame compatibility. In particular:

(1) Wildlife. Everybody knows about the Wild Boars of Death. The wildlife's attack rate and knockdown strength is so big that it's not even funny, except sometimes like when a Hungry Wolf wandered into the cabin of the Master Hunter and eviscerated him. I finished off the wolf and left him hanging from the cabin's window. Basically, if a single wolf can finish off a master hunter, or a single wild boar can whack half an orc patrol (or, for that matter, a bloodfly can whack me in about two seconds flat), something's really out of whack. (Also, the hares don't run. It feels rather silly to be hunting hares with a polearm.)

(2) Movement speed. It's just not right that I outrun a deer, wolf, or one of those Wild Boars of Death.

(3) Severely underpowered swords (and shields). I'd built up a fella with the second rank in swordfighting and shield parry, and was still getting whacked by the wildlife. (Worked well against people though.) So out of frustration I started over and made like in G2 — put everything in heavy weapons ASAP. Guess what? With a *smaller* learning point investment, I can now whack Wild Boars of Death and even the occasional minecrawler, where previously a bloodfly meant a serious challenge. Fighting people is at least as much easier.

Now, this would be very simple to solve: just make an O-esque "recoil" effect from a successfully parried blow, breaking the hail of blows you'd otherwise get and giving you an opening to land one of your own. Small tweak, major effect.

As it is, the short weapons thing is pretty pointless, since sword-and-shield costs so much to build up, yet it remains so much less effective than two-handers. (To further balance it, you might want to make the effects of fatigue more severe — it doesn't really matter that my endurance is at zero if I can still keep swinging, keeping the enemy off-balance and landing blows; if I had to stop and catch my breath it would be totally different… but probably so severe that two-handers would become unplayable.)

Anyhoo, just a few early thoughts. I still think it's a great game, immersive and addictive in the true Gothic way — but I really, really hope the game balance gets sorted out a bit. I would've been happy to wait another month or two for it.

I don't know if you found it yet but there is a sword that you can find pretty early that is rather powerful. I still use it, and was until frustration hit me today , prefering shield and sword play. Was very well aware that more power made it easier. (Altough, the goblin shaman killing me with 2 fireball that curved around obstacles (tree) did ruin my experience for now.)

Gothic 3 has kept my interest for over a week constant. Thats pretty impressive for me!

Originally Posted by Prime Junta
And I'm enjoying the hell out of it. It's pulled me in more than just about any game in the recent few years.

Same here, I wondered around the world a bit and took some random quests,
The world is stunningly beatifull and alive. Design is as good (or even better)
than the predecessors and the ambience is fantastic. Quests look varied and
are well presented and even secondary (quest vendor) NPC's are well fleshed out even in the few lines of Dialogue they have (Great voiceacting helps too).

You are presented with choises and dilemmas at every turn and I love the fact
that the Game doesn't wait interminatelly for your actions but some times things
seem to move along at their own speed leaving you with missed opportunities
if you i.e opt to go aimlessly wandering through the countryside…
/gush over

Originally Posted by Prime Junta
(1) Wildlife. Everybody knows about the Wild Boars of Death…

Heh, you can even observe it in fights between beasts…i.e a bloodfly can
have a Warg with Waffles for breakfast… sad really.. I almost went in to
rescue the Warg…

All this could just be fixed with a little tweaking of the beasts attack speed…
I mean how hard could that be… ? and now we have to wait 5-6 weeks for the
patch ?! Conveniently just before the NA release eh ?

Originally Posted by Prime Junta
(2) Movement speed. It's just not right that I outrun a deer, wolf, or one of those Wild Boars of Death.

True, yet another inconsistency. In my opinion it would be much more realistic
and satisfying if they either cut the sprint duration to half without the relevant
(I think it is called stamina of the Wolf ?) perk or even remove it completely and
give it through the perk (or add a perk for the default and keep a perk for the
expanded… whatever).